Back to school...

It's hard to believe that exactly one month ago, I was on vacation.

Today marks is probably the only evening since then that I could sit down and write. Seeing as to how the past four weeks have been rather eventful, I feel the urge to share a little about my life.

To begin, I must admit that I am finally enjoying living in Edmonton. For one, the city is endowed with marvelous choirs. Just this past afternoon, I had the immense pleasure of hearing Pro Coro perform their season opener. This fabulous choir, lead by Richard Sparks, performed one of my all-time favourite pieces: Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir. Those of you who are familiar with the piece will surely envy my having heard it performed, and performed it very well indeed! Richard Sparks is a wonderful conductor to watch. His gestures seem effortless. Through cascades of Martin's dynamics, Richard Sparks carries the music with absolute conviction - a truly inspiring sight for a student conductor to see.

I have the privilege of testing out my own conducting skills in the city this year. I now hold the position of Co-conductor with the Festival Singers (http://www.festivalsingers.ca) - a community choir the Sherwood Park district of Edmonton. This past weekend, the choir organized the Starthcona Choir Workshop - a single day event featuring clinicians from in and around the city. The event was a pretty big deal to me, as I have never been a clinician before. I conducted two workshops; the first dealt with the Eurhythmics music teaching method, from the works of Emile Dalcroze, and the second focused on teaching Latin American choral music. I think that the second workshop was most engaging. The participants learned a song, danced and played percussion, all to the accompaniment of guitar. The song proved to be quite catchy too! I was very nervous about the whole thing, I must admit. Although I prepared for it well, I wasn't sure how many people would attend or how the event would gel together and so my anxiety was getting the best of me. In any case, I think that I did fairly well. At least now I can now say that I lead my very own clinic!

With the Stathcona Choir Workshop behind me, I can now focus on rehearsing my graduate recital choir. For those of you who are not familiar with how the graduate program in conducting at the University of Alberta works, I shall briefly explain (the rest may skip to the next paragraph!). As this is a course-based program, I am responsible for completing both course work and a conducting recital by the end of my second year in the program. The 'trial-run' for the graduating conducting recital occurs at the end of your first year with a joint conducting recital with other first year students in your program. Your individual recital spans 14 rehearsals, twice a week, at the end of which I conduct a concert. The process is quite intense, as I must plan rehearsals, execute them, account for any 'unforeseen circumstances' while trying to keep on top of my game, and to say the least, personable. A lot like real life!

I absolutely love working with my ensemble. Each singer has been handpicked and more than half of them are my friends who are in the ensemble as a favour to me. Each time that I make a mistake, or say something slightly out of place (which I do more than I would like to admit!), I look at the faces in front of me and feel nothing but support. I realize then how lucky I am to belong to a school with such as program as I am in now and to know the people that I do. Sure, there are ups and downs (and boy there has been many) Yet overall, I am extremely grateful for what I have. Stay tuned for recital videos!

So as you can see, my life is awfully busy but ceaselessly exciting. I wish that I could produce a more cohesive entry, rather than a collage of thoughts and impressions. But as I am unable to do so, I merely quenched my thirst to write.